Six areas company leaders should focus on for success in 2022 and beyond

A new year and a new Covid normal| Phillip Myrtop|unsplash.com

Has Covid affected your company? Your employees? Of course, it has. But we expected things to have returned to a closer normal than they have. Unfortunately, this may be the new Covid normal. Since that is the case, you have to change your focus as a leader to survive in this new Covid normal. I have listed six areas of focus for you to consider below.

Six leadership Areas

1. Revise and articulate the vision for the future.
2. Your vision statement will need to reflect the future and your current view of the company and where it will be going rather than remain a fixed document. Your vision statement will have to be fluid in the new Covid environment. It’s critical that you let everyone know what is going on and where you’re going.
3. Review and revise the Mission of your business.
4. Is the new Covid world going to change the mission for you? If so, communicate each time it changes. You have to keep all your employees and customers informed about your mission and vision change. You can’t ignore the fact that Covid is affecting everything we’re doing and how we will do it in the future.
5. Review the Human Resources policies and procedures. They must reflect the new business processes that you’re using during Covid.
6. For larger companies, the old Human Resources policies probably won’t work as well anymore. Again, it’s up to you to recognize this and begin the revision process.
7. Listen to your employees and keep them informed.
8. It’s necessary to listen to your employees to find out what is really going on. I’m absolutely sure it isn’t what you think. The work-from-home environment changes sleep schedules, how they care for children, and their stress levels. Understand the issues they’re facing first, then work to make them better.
9. Please communicate with your customers so you can set their expectations.
10. I can’t tell you how important this is. Telling them something will be delivered on Tuesday and having it arrive on Thursday without any communication from you will put your company in a bad light and ultimately will cause you to lose customers.
11. Be patient.
12. We’re living or trying to live and do business in a new Covid world. It’s evolving daily and will require better listening and communication skills than ever before.
13. Your employees are working in a radically different environment from what it has been. Many have quit because they don’t want to learn and change with this new environment. In addition, many are struggling with the command of “work from home” with little or no guidance and recognition of the additional expense burdens placed on them.
14. It would help if you talked to them to see how the company can make this work better.
15. Your employees are probably wondering how they’re doing, how they will be evaluated, and how you will define success or failure. If you don’t have the answers yet, tell them and invite them to help you define these things, so they result in a win-win for everyone.
16. Covid and the resulting changes to work aren’t going away by the end of 2022. We will be living with Covid for a long time.

The key to the future and perhaps your word for the year should be resilience. You can’t get away from this rapidly changing Covid normal. It’s with us now and will be with us in the future.